2019 Wk 51 - a day in my happy place

I actually had pretty much a whole day to sew on Thursday - unheard of!!!

And my extra fabric from Janet Clare arrived too so guess what I did!!!

It’s all cut and speed dated, the pieces are mostly joined into strips, and I am loving it!!! The (few) free motioned pictures are included, and the fabrics are all chosen to remind me of my father, the family holiday cottage south of Bergen, and Bergen itself.  There will be enough fabric left over to make a smaller one for my step mum too

And Luna clearly gives it her seal of approval!

This was supposed to be the last Christmas pressie - a bag for the tiles for a favourite game of Lisa’s

But then I got the urge to make rope bowls.  I hadn’t made a totally scrappy one before, I’m really happy with the result.  Niki can use it for bathroom stuff,  food or rubbish!!!

And then I made a much subtle one for Lisa. I’ve bought her a crochet pattern and the wool for Christmas and I think this will be a good size basket to keep it all in.

What I don’t understand is how they decide for themselves what shape they will take! I swear I made these the same but they came out very different shapes - at the end I decided Lisa’s needed handles too

One of husband’s nieces sent me this pic - I made a sack for her oldest daughter Chloe ten years ago when she was a baby - and now one for the much younger new little sister Olivia

And this arrived in the post from Jackie.  I’m sure the inside will be awesome, but at the moment I’m happy looking at the outside - it reminds me of our “small world” that hangs in my bedroom

2019 Wk 48 - Drat and fiddlesticks

Fact 1: I had thousands of photos of my phone - some were family photos, some were blog photos and some were ones that had come in through WhatsApp etc and stayed.  And my phone was using battery at an alarming rate

Fact 2: I used to have to save my phone photos to my PC to be able to add them to my blog, but some time ago (my guess is September 2016*) a new option appeared so I could add photos from my phone which saved a lot of time.

Fact 3: Someone suggested that I delete some of my photos from my phone to see if that helped with the battery usage.

Have you guessed what happened?

Fact 4: I saved the family photos from the phone to the network, but I deleted the others that I'd used on the blog starting at about 2013, up to about April 2018: I planned to carry on later.

And the reason I can quote the dates?  Almost every photo on the blog between September 2016 and April 2018 has been replaced by this

I have done the hair pulling and the screaming at the computer and the crying - and finally the thinking ... Google give me 60 days to change my mind about deleting photos - phew!  So I think I have reinstated most of them!

I have managed a bit of sewing too!

This planning

and this cutting

and this making-binding-by-bodging happened (sorry about the striped ironing board cover, makes it difficult to see what I'm doing but the binding is purple and then red)

and making this

And this

And then doing this ...

More to follow when it's been pressed under a weight to get the vinyl creases out!

I've started working on this with the Kaffe Fassett 3" squares I got from Jackie - I'm really loving the fabric!  : It's planned and ready to stitch

And I've done the prep for the next Chertsey Museum class - we are doing scrappy pennies

These were fun to do.  They all started the same but I did different embroideries

And finally I've received another Pudsey themed hexie flower from the Facebook swap group I've joined.  Roll on next month

The one where I multi-tasked (and selvedged)

I'm *still* ploughing my way through the school uniforms!  I cant go very far from the machine as (a) very occasionally the machine gets hungry and tries to eat a sweatshirt, and (b), although each one only takes 6 minutes to embroider I need to trim the threads on the one that has just finished and hoop the next one, which leaves just 3 or 4 minutes free before I need to set up the next one.

So I need an easy project, that requires no planning or thinking, and that I can leave as often as I like and come back to easily.  Today's multitasking was selvedge edges.  I have a drawer full of them, so I've joined similar lengths together.

Not sure what I'm going to do with them next, but together with all these

 
and the lovely Pinterest (https://uk.pinterest.com/slikstitches/selvedge-inspiration/) I'm sure I can get some good ideas

In the meantime - I have some more of these to do!

The one where I did *more* machine embroidery and some quilting

You really don't expect *more* photos of preschool uniforms I hope?  I'm getting a little fed up with them - 44 down, 31 to go!!!

However the HST and Strings / £7 quilt has moved along and now looks like this

I've done some liberated (free range) quilting in the solids . . .

using a lovely variegated thread . . .

However, my drawer of fabric strings doesn't seem to have gone down AT ALL!!!

What have you been doing?

I'm not working on any particular projects at the moment, but during a drive to my mums, and a day at hers, I tacked a whole load of La Passacaglia pieces and got this far on my third cog

Back at home I got fed up with my 2.5" strip drawer overflowing,

and inspired by this from Kitchen Table Quilting I started sewing the strips in pairs

and then trimming them to 4.5" squares.  It will take a while, but its a good enders and leaders project.

I also made some patches for the girlfriends I go away with each autumn - our last trip was to Gibraltar and we went on a dolphin spotting trip!

And I tidied my room so I can see nearly all of my workbench

And I machined binding onto three quilts ready for hand finishing

 I love school holidays!!!!

Sweet Sixteen Scrappy Blocks

I may have got a bit carried away making these sweet 16 scrappy blocks:

I made five pairs . . .

 Than another five . . .

And I have some single blocks plus lots of strips left over

Don't they look fab together!

Ive made 30 odd so far and have plenty of scraps left, and Jackie is making some too,  and Sue is sending some over to be swapped with duplicates, so by the time Jackie comes over in early July we'll have enough between us to make a top each

Sweet Sixteen Scrappy Swap (and Stupidity)

Jackie had a really good idea - we should do scrappy blocks, but make two of each and swap the spares.

We discussed various blocks, and finally decided on a 16 patch where alternates were white ish, and the others are using up whatever we've got - it would be fun to see if we can have each patterned square as a unique fabric.

Jackie started yesterday with this one

and I had a play this afternoon (rubbish day at work so I needed therapy!)

I rooted through my far-too-full strips box

And paired a whole load of strips with fabric that was white or certainly low volume

And joined them together and cut them up and rejoined them:

So a 16 patch needs to be 4 x 4 yes? And I need to think double to make one for Jackie too?

Well in my mind that was a lot of doubling. It was only after I'd joined each one to white and pressed them that I realised I had enough not for TWO sweet 16 blocks, but FOUR!

Anyone else want to make and swap some sweet 16 blocks????

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Bloggers Quilt Festival Post Part 2

I can lose hours and hours visiting Amy's online Bloggers Quilt Festival each year, she does an amazing job organising it all, and I always find new bloggers to follow, and to inspire me

Here is my entry to the scrappy section

These string blocks had been building up over many years with no particular purpose other than to reduce the bulk in the scraps drawer.  At Christmas I received a message from a childhood friend that she was dying of cancer; although I had already arranged to be visiting family in May, nearby her home, and therefore seeing her too, she wasn't sure she would still be alive.  

The feeling helplessness is beyond description:  I just wanted to be able to hug her, but even that wasn't possible due to distance.  So these blocks were joined (inspired by Nicky's fractured quilt) and bound and posted as substitute for a real hug

(I notice the photo was taken before I finished it - it did get finished and posted immediately! Hence no final photo)

Olaug received the quilt, and loved it.  She sadly died last month, so it's her mum I will visit next week, not her :-(

Rest in Peace Olaug xxxx

Christmassy Trip Around the World

I don't seem to want to stick with any one project at the moment, so today's stitching has resulted in another seven STAW blocks

They will be sashed like this when they are joined, unless I decide I prefer the sash-less arrangement!

I've had to stop now for a while with this project as I need more variety in the light fabrics - don't worry, it's on order!!!!


Which does remind me, I've been doing some other shopping - with so many bloggers on a fabric diet this year I feel the responsibility falls to me to take up the slack!!!!

There is a rainbow charm quilt in the planning, and a rainbow hexi quilt, so of course I needed these (and aren't they pretty!!!!) and one pack is Jackie's so that makes it all OK

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